Study Says: Exercise Helps Even More as you Age

Everyone knows that regular exercise is essential for a healthy body. Here’s something new: researchers have been busy researching ways to delay the muscle shrinkage that comes with aging and sedentary lifestyle.

Dafna Benayahu, with the Tel Aviv University in Israel, and his colleagues studied lab rats to see whether endurance exercise would increase the number of muscle stem cells, which are the cells that decrease as humans age, leading to muscle weakness in the elderly.

They compared rats of different ages and sexes. What they found was pretty amazing: the number of muscle stem cells grew after the rats ran on a treadmill for 20 minutes a day for a 13-week period.

Although the younger rats showed a 20% to 35% increase in the average number of stem cells per muscle fiber retained, the older rats benefited even more, with a 33% to 47% increase in stem cells!

The researchers are hoping that this study will help them identify new ways to increase muscle stem cells in humans, so we could help maintain muscle strength as we age.

Dr. Vip Dev enjoys a distinguished surgical and academic career. He has authored or co-authored over 30 publications in General, Reconstructive and Plastic Surgery, as well as aesthetic techniques. His busy office in Bakersfield, CA offers aesthetic & reconstructive plastic surgery as well as and skin rejuvenation.